Gaming

Nintendo has been accused of breaking European law by not allowing consumers to obtain refunds on pre-ordered games. The company been singled out as the worst offender of seven major digital video games platforms that were looked at by the Norwegian Consumer Council in this investigation. Though it only praises ...

Overwatch wasn’t what you’d call a “surprise” hit — everyone knew it was going to wipe the floor with its immediate competition. But unlike a lot of games, it still costs money. If you’ve been meaning to give it a shot but don’t feel like shelling out the $40, this ...

Game streaming site Twitch today is debuting an always-on chat room feature it’s simply calling “Rooms.” The addition was first announced at its developer event TwitchCon back in October, and was expected to launch before year-end. That timing shifted a bit, but the feature is going live today across both ...

Korea’s dominant messaging firm Kakao is back raising funds after its games business, a standalone unit that is headed for an IPO, pulled in $130 million (140 billion KRW) from Tencent and a range of other strategic investors. The company, which owns Korea’s top mobile messaging app and one of ...

The latest game from Monument Valley designer Ken Wong doesn’t have much in common with the brilliant pastel puzzler, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth experiencing. Florence, available now in the App Store, isn’t really a game so much as a graphic novel strewn with a few interactive moments, ...

The majority of Twitch’s product announcements lately have been focused around new tools or expanded money-making opportunities for its video creators. Today, the company is instead launching new features for viewers – one related to Twitch’s 60-second video snippets called Clips and another to its virtual tipping mechanism, Cheering. Starting ...

The “endless runner” genre of games seems inherently stress-generating to me, since it implies running, without end. But Alto’s Adventure, the 2015 game from Toronto developer Snowman, provided an endless runner that was actively and profoundly relaxing, thanks to a mellow, immersive soundtrack and graphics that seem drawn from some ...

YouTube Gaming, Google’s rival to game-streaming site Twitch, is starting to pick up traction. According to a new report from Streamlabs, Twitch continues to dominate the live streaming space, but YouTube grew its monthly active streamer base by 343 percent over the course of 2017. Twitch, by comparison, grew 197 ...

In the latest chapter of GAFAM’s continuing bid to conquer online gaming, Microsoft has acquired PlayFab, which helps game developers launch their titles online more quickly with simplified back-end services. The startup will be integrated into Microsoft’s Azure gaming group. The Seattle-based startup had raised around $13 million in funding from investors. Terms ...

Hacker group fail0verflow shared a photo of a Nintendo Switch running Debian, a distribution of Linux (via Nintendo Life). The group claims that Nintendo can’t fix the vulnerability with future firmware patches. According to fail0verflow, there’s a flaw in the boot ROM in Nvidia’s Tegra X1 system-on-a-chip. when your console ...